The Missing Cup
by Lucid Outis
Summary: When Komui loses his coffee cup, he enlists the help of the (very free) exorcists in to find it.
1. Chapter 1

_This is a short slice-of-life story on life at the order. Simple and focusing mainly on the characters... no real connection to the manga/anime plot. I hope you enjoy the beginning._

* * *

**Chapter 1: The Missing Cup**

"Beansprout, you're in my way," Kanda growled, staring down at Allen.

"I was here first, and my name is Allen," Allen glowered back.

It had been some time since any of the exorcists had been out on a mission, and everyone was starting to get restless. "I wonder what's up, why is it so quiet out there..." Lavi sighed, staring out of the window as he looked up from a thick, red book. "I'm SO BORED, old panda!"

Bookman cuffed Lavi hard on the side of his head with an irritated look. "Shut up and read!" He snapped. "You stupid old panda," Lavi snapped back. "It's really boring, though," he sighed again, tossing his book onto a pile of more books and rolling onto his back so he could see the sky. "Something we can't see is brewing," Bookman mused seriously, his eyes following his apprentice's gaze.

There was a knock on the door, and Lavi got to his feet in anticipation. "Let me out of this stuffy old place already!" He hollered as he wrenched open the door. There was a pause as he took in the scene in front of him. "Ara? Lenalee?" He peered over her head at Kanda and Allen glaring at each other. He could feel the burning fire of hate radiating from them. Lenalee smiled a little helplessly up at him. "Lavi, nii-chan wants to see us…"

* * *

"Like hell I am going to take part in such a meaningless endeavor," Kanda quivered, darkly glaring at Komui. "Buy yourself another one!"

Komui burst into tears. "My cup! My cute little cuuup… where are youuuu?" With a dramatic flourish, he tossed all the papers of his desk and stared around sniffling. "I can't drink coffee without it, Kanda. Allen, Lavi, tell him!" Komui knelt down before the duo dejectedly.

"Uh, but what was so special about that cup," Allen asked, the corner of his eye twitching as he tried vainly to detach the supervisor from his leg.

"It's a gift from someone precious!" Komui sobbed. "Allen! Allen, you must help me find it!" He wiped his tears off on the white haired exorcist's trousers. Allen looked away in disgust. "Who was it…"

Everyone fell silent, knowing what the answer was. "Lenalleeee! My precious Lenallleeee!" Komui wailed, grabbing hold of Lavi's scarf and pulling his face close. Everyone sighed.

"It's okay, nii-chan," Lenalee smiled, her brows knitting together in embarrassment. "I will get you a new one…"

"IT'S NOT THE SAME! IT'S NOT THE SAME! I WANT MY CUP! THE CUP LENALEE GAVE MEEE!" Komui screamed, throwing a tantrum. "The coffee in every other cup tastes disgusting," he whimpered, demonstrating by taking a drink and spitting it all out into Kanda's face.

With the sound of something like an enraged cat, Kanda turned slowly away from Komui, a dark, thundery cloud hanging over his head. His black eyes smoldered through a face drenched with dark brown coffee and everyone edged away as he cut a straight line through the room towards the door. "Don't even think of disturbing me with such a stupid thing as that again," Kanda threatened in a soft voice that sent shivers running through everyone who was left in the room. He slammed the door loudly behind him, and everyone jumped.

"I could almost feel that ridiculous sword of his slicing through my neck…" Lavi heaved a sigh of relief after a few long seconds. The sound of loud wailing brought everyone's eyes back to the culprit. "Kanda is so heartless!" Komui sobbed. "I just want my cup back… where could it have gone…" A sudden calm creeped over him and he peered dangerously over his shoulder at Lavi and Allen. "You'll help me find my cute little cup right, Allen and Lavi? If you don't feel up to it, I have my latest invention…" He reached into his coat and began to pull something out.

Allen and Lavi glanced at each other with anxiety filled eyes. "H… hold on, I am sure we will be able to find your cup…" Allen said, waving his hand soothingly at Komui as if to conjure away whatever horror Komui was about to pull out.

"Really?" Komui cried out happily, instantly forgetting about his new invention. Everyone sighed with relief. "Y… yes of course," Lavi backed Allen up, forcing a smile. "Ne, Lenalee, of course we are up to finding a cup for the supervisor…" Lenalee nodded vigorously, also smiling. "Nii-san, you just sit here quietly and we will find your cup, okay?"

Komui gave a final sniff and nodded. "Lenalee is so kind," he smiled, sitting down at his desk.

"That… that was close," Allen muttered to Lavi as they left the supervisor's office. "Yeah, who knows what crazy invention he made up… Komurin 5, maybe?" Allen and Lavi looked ill at the thought of another one of those crazy machines coming to life at the order again.

* * *

"Guys, I'm sorry that you have to help at such a mundane thing," Lenalee said, apologetically. "He's been like this all morning and he won't stop looking for the cup."

"Haha, it's alright, Lenalee… I was really bored up in my room anyway," Allen shrugged as they walked. "So was I," Lavi echoed, grinning cheekily. "It should be interesting. Where could a cup like that disappear?" He laughed. There was a momentary pause as everyone visualized the cup with the weird pink bunny dancing on it.

"Yeah," Allen agreed. "If anything, it's difficult to lose," he said, voicing everyone's thoughts.

"Anyway, nii-san will go crazy if the cup isn't found soon, so let's commence 'operation find Komui's cup'," Lenalee said.

"Okay!" Allen and Lavi agreed, pumping their fists in the air comically.


	2. Chapter 2

Note: It has never been confirmed that Komui's unique cup was a gift from Lenalee. I just made that up.

Note 2: 'Komurin' in the first chapter refers to 'Komlin' according to wikipedia, a series of machines Komui invented. I was following the spelling in the subtitles of the -Man anime I watched.

* * *

**Chapter 2: Operation Find Komui's Cup - Commence!**

Apparently a period of unusual peace in the world of exorcists has little or no effect on life at the Order... only the exorcists are a lot freer then they are used to. Which was probably why Allen, Lenalee and Lavi had just allowed themselves to be talked into looking for Komui's precious cup... a gift from Lenalee, without which he could not drink coffee. In the moment they agree to undertake the little mission, they suddenly face a new problem.

"... The Order's huge... where do we even start?" Allen spoke up first, leaning back against a railing and peering up the length of the tower that was the Order's refuge. His white hair flopped back a bit as if emphasizing the impossibility of searching the entire Order for one measly cup, unique though it was.

"Let's start by asking the Science Department if they have seen any sign of it," Lenalee suggested. "Ah, that's a good idea," Lavi said. "Let's play detectives!" He fished out a magnifying glass from somewhere and held it to his eye with a cheeky grin.

"Wouldn't Komui have already asked..." Allen began, before he fell silent. "But... he's Komui..." He grimaced a bit, thinking of how eccentric and just plain idiotic the supervisor could be.

"Hai, Lenalee... are those wrinkles forming under your eyes?" Lavi's distant voice reached Allen.

"Eeeehhh... wait for me!" Allen yelled, chasing after his companions who had left him behind as he zoned out.

"Allen! Don't get lost," Lenalee called out.

* * *

The small party soon reached the science department quarters which wasn't too far from Komui's office. As usual, paperwork was strewn all over the place - on chairs, tables, floors, shelves, sleeping (unconscious) scientists... the haphazard scene was the norm at the science department.

"Allen! Lenalee! Lavi!" The scientists greeted them, shaken out of their overworked stupor by the sudden appearance of the young exorcists. "What's up?" Reever asked, peering over the rims of his glasses at them.

"The truth is, we are looking for ni-san's cup," Lenalee explained, with a chagrined look on her face.

"Eh, he lost it?" Reever said in surprise, the other scientists echoing him. "How is the building still standing?" He gasped, rushing out together with the other scientists to look out over the rest of the building. "It's whole! It's a miracle! Lenalee, thank you so much for preventing another Great Destruction," he cried, a tears of relief flowing from his eyes.

"Ara?" Allen, Lenalee and Lavi voiced in unison, puzzled expressions on their faces as the initially drab mood in the science department changed to celebratory in a flash.

"Ah, you don't know?" Johnny said, gazing intensely at the three through his thick glasses. "About 6 years ago, when Lenalee was out on a mission... the supervisor lost his cup." A dark, dense atmosphere settled upon the room as all the scientists fell silent and seemed to be seeing some distant painful past flashing before their eyes.

"He went insane," Tup chipped in, saying the word 'insane' as if he was passing judgement.

"So great was his distress that he called upon his first Komlin prototype to seek out that cursed cup... " Reever continued. All the scientists sighed collectively. "Needless to say, we spent the better part of 3 months getting the paperwork for repairs of almost the entire upper levels of the headquarters, not to mention the work force of Finders cut down by a quarter while we sought out the right people to complete the repair work, as well as having to emergency call in Sound Marie to use his Innocence to hold together what was left of the building because Komlin prototype had ravaged its foundations... IT WAS A NIGHTMARE!" Reever clutched at his head of messy hair as Johnny, Tup and Number 65 looked on nodding sagely.

"... ALLEN! LENALEE! LAVI! YOU MUSN'T LET THAT NIGHTMARE EVER BE REPEATED AGAIN!" Reever cried in a voice near a scream as he clutched his messy hair. "We can't even keep up with the workload at the moment, let alone building repair paperwork as well as the environmental stress that will come with a replay of it..." The exorcists had backed as far as they could from the grieving group of scientists, and now had their back against the wall, looks of a mixture of fear and pity fixed on their faces.

"Ni-san that idiot..." Lenalee growled, clenching her fist tight. "Causing so much trouble over something so stupid..."

"Ha... ha, ha..." Allen forced a laugh together with Lavi. The two boys inched closer to each other as birds to a flock, feeling that they were probably the only sane people in the room. "Ah, Reever..." A thought suddenly struck Allen. "But how did you stop Komlin?" The memories weren't particularly pleasant, but encounters with Komui's completed versions of Komlin had been disastrous at best, and it had required the assistance of exorcists with Innocence to annihilate each Komlin... and even then it had been difficult.

"Oh luckily, that prototype of Komlin obeyed the supervisor's voice commands... and when he got the cup back he stopped it," Reever answered, taking a sip from his coffee cup.

"Imagine if it had been a completed version of Komlin..." Johnny and Tup's faces turned colour just thinking of it.

"Oh lucky! You found the cup?" Lavi said, intrigued despite the scientists rather insane dramatic rendition of their past troubles with the eccentric headquarters supervisor and Lenalee's dark anger at her brother's antiques.

"SSSSHHHH...!" Reever, Johnny, Tup and Number 65 leaped at Lavi and clapped their hands over Lavi's mouth in once unified motion.

"MMMPFFFHH! MPPFFHH!" Lavi choked, struggling hard under the pressure of all the scientists silencing at once.

"Oi, oi, Lavi's suffocating," Allen said, waving his hands soothingly, trying vainly to calm the scientists.

Ignoring Allen, Reever made a few long strides across the room and shut and locked the door with a click. Then he pulled Lenalee, Allen and Lavi into a tight group and whispered: "Actually, the cup was never found... the cup the supervisor has had all this time is a fake," Reever whispered hoarsely to the three.

"Eh?" Lenalee's eyes widened in surprise.

"EH? EEEEHHHHH?!" Lavi and Allen cried out before being hushed desperately by the scientists.

After everyone had calmed down, Reever nodded and with a mysterious air about him, he said in a low tone: "The truth is, we made a new cup which was almost exactly like the original. To this day, what happened to the original cup is still a mystery."

There was absolute silence in the room. The gears in the minds of the three friends could almost be heard whirring away at the information they had been given...


	3. The Missing Cup - Chapter 3: Step 1

"... so the cup was never found?" Allen repeated, slowly.

Reever nodded. "It's still missing. Who knows what happened to it," he shrugged nonchalantly.

"... and Komui didn't realize?" Lavi muttered, mystified, his fingers stroking his chin.

"No, he did not," Reever replied, with a triumphant look on his face. "Using a cup-making machine we designed on the spot, we churned out nearly a thousand similar cups with minuscule variations, showing each one to him individually..." He positively sparkled with pride. All the scientists nodded as one, remarkably proud with their successful deception.

"In the end, we managed to make a cup identical to the cup he lost!"

Allen stared at the scientists with a slightly zoned out look on his face. "You mean he didn't think it odd...?" He had a momentary vision of Komui tossing each fake cup at the prototype Komlin to destroy all without a hitch. 'The supervisor is an even bigger idiot than I thought...' Allen thought to himself, the corners of his mouth twitching half in disbelief, half in humor.

"Unfortunately, the prototype Komlin's final act before it was stopped was to destroy our precious cup-making machine..." Johnny said, sorrowfully. "RIP, cup-making machine," he murmured softly, taking out a handkerchief and dabbing at his eyes.

"Anyway! It's not practical, nor is it essential that we make another cup-making machine this time around, so all of you absolutely have to put all your efforts into looking for the cup." Reever continued, reaching up and pulling a projection screen out of thin air.

'Eh? When was there ever a projection screen...'Allen thought to himself.

"Oh! A projection screen!" Lavi exclaimed, inspecting the screen closely, wide eyed.

"In order to avoid another 'Great Destruction', the science department came up with an emergency plan should Komui ever lose his cup again..." Reever said, pointing at the screen seriously. It said:

**EMERGENCY PLAN AGAINST ANOTHER GREAT DESTRUCTION**

"Step 1, immediately dispatch personnel to search all the possible places Komui's cup could have been misplaced! These places include

1. The canteen! This is where the coffee is made, after all.

2. The passage from here to his office.

3. His room.

4. His office! - there was a momentary pause as everyone visualized the mountains of documents, papers, books and other odds and ends that filled Komui's office- His office! As a final last resort act of desperation!

* * *

"Allen! What will you have today?" Jeryy asked excitedly, leaning out to look Allen right in the face.

"I will have beef steak with lemon sauce, tomato saut..."Allen began with a far away look on his face as he concentrated on the very important task of listing out his next meal of the day.

"Allen! It isn't even lunch time yet!" Lenalee chided, breaking his concentration.

"Ah, Allen's always hungry..."Lavi grinned. "He must have a hole in his stomach. How will you ever attract any girls if you eat like that, Allen?" He frowned sympathetically at Allen.

"I will marry someone who loves to cook!"Allen answered, without a hitch, pumping his fist in determination. "And I will eat every single thing she cooks! I will kill anyone else who tries to eat it!" He grinned maniacally. Lenalee and Lavi edged away from him. 'Allen's dark side...' they both had the same thought. The people surrounding them was suddenly reduced to zero.

"Oh my, such strong words, Allen!" Jeryy exclaimed, clapping his hands together in delight. "What business is so important that you can't even eat a bit..." he pouted a bit. "It's my joy to be able to feed a stomach like Allen's!"

"Haha," Allen laughed, his face shining dreamily at the thought of food.

'They are both mad...' Lenalee and Lavi thought in unison.

"Ah, Jeryy have you seen ni-san's cup?" Lenalee asked. Jeryy's face turned serious and he lowered his voice. "It's missing?"

"Yeah, and the supervisor's making a big fuss over it," Lavi replied, adjusting his scarf. "We thought that maybe it might have gone missing from here to his office."

Folding his arms with a look of intense concentration, Jerry frowned deeply. "Hmmm..."

Hopefully, the exorcists waited for his answer. Perhaps their search would end right here and they could prevent something drastic from happening!

"Hmmm..." Jeryy mused to himself, his brow wrinkling. "Nope."

Their faces fell. "Oh that's alright then. Thank you, Jeryy-san," Allen smiled, waving his hand.

"I'm sorry for not being of much help, Allen," Jeryy said, sadly. "I will compensate for it during lunch!" There was a gleam in his eye as he clicked his chopsticks together in anticipation.

"Let's go, Allen!" Lavi said, pulling Allen along with him as they followed Lenalee out of the canteen.

"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" Allen exclaimed, shaking Lavi off. "What was that about?" He frowned, brushing his sleeves down.

"Allen, you were practically drooling in anticipation," Lavi said with a reproving look on his face.

"I was not," Allen retorted, making a face at him.

"Actually, you were," Lenalee said, giggling. "There was a bit of drool in the corner of your mouth, you must have been daydreaming of food."

Allen went red. "I didn't!" He denied, folding his arms and looking away in a huff.

"So childish, Allen!" Lavi teased, grinning maliciously.

"Who's calling who childish!" Allen snapped.

They came to a sudden stop as Allen bumped into someone. "Ouch, Allen what's wrong?" Lenalee frowned up at him, rubbing her shoulder where he had walked into her.

"Eh!Eheh, I'm so sorry, Lenalee!" Allen apologized, clapping his hands together and bowing. "It was Lavi's fault..." He shot Lavi an accusing glance.

"Komui-saaan... Allen has violated Lenalee..." Lavi whispered loudly, covering his mouth with a naughty expression on his face. Allen's hackles stood on end as he glanced around quickly to check that Komui had not somehow heard.

"Be quiet, both of you," Lenalee frowned at them, her mouth twitching in irritation. "This is ni-san's room," she turned to face the door she had stopped in front of.

All three of them paused to stare at the door. "It looks so ordinary," Lavi remarked, a rather disappointed look on his face.

"I wouldn't be fooled by that," Allen laughed sourly, his head tilting to one side as he considered the possible tricks the eccentric supervisor's room might hide.

"If ni-san left his cup anywhere, it's likely to be in his room, so we had better check it," Lenalee continued, frowning as if she wanted to agree but could not out of loyalty to her brother. "I am sure he wouldn't mind if we just took a look around..."

"Maybe there are a lot of pictures of Lenalee stuck all over the place," Lavi considered, his hand cupping his chin thoughtfully. Lenalee's face darkened. She had not entered her brothers room for some time... but could she put it past him not to do something like... that...

"I will search the room, then!" Lenalee said, decisively. "I am his sister, after all." She put her hand on the door knob and began twisting it. "' can't have them see something so embarrassing, so I have to check first...' Lenalee thought to herself. 'If ni-san has done anything stupid, I won't let them enter...'

"Hey, wait Lenalee," Allen interrupted her hand motion by placing his hand on hers. "We don't know what boobie traps Komui has set... let me open it," he said in characteristic Allen nobility.

"No, it's fine," Lenalee smiled, tightening her grip on the door knob. 'I can't let Allen see what's in ni-san's room first,' Lenalee thought in panic.

"AAAHH, THIS IS TOO MUCH!" Lavi yelled, reaching between their bodies. Having unusual strength for a normal person, he easily twisted the doorknob and opened the door...

Everyone stared into the door way.


End file.
